


Six Weeks

by Mango_Marbles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 01:58:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9945317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mango_Marbles/pseuds/Mango_Marbles
Summary: Sam has been in solitary confinement for six weeks, but he's never left alone. Spoilers for the end of 12x08, LOTUS. An alternate episode 12x09, First Blood.





	1. Caged

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Supernatural. This is in the process of being cross posted from ff.net.

The entire place reeked of human depravity. A place he was told didn't exist, not officially.

Dean was there, too. Somewhere. Not near him, though. They were kept alone. Too dangerous to be left otherwise.

They thought they won, but Lucifer had the last laugh. He told his security detail that they were unstable mad men. He told them they were cult members.

He wasn't even back in The Cage. The only part of the plan that worked was expelling him from his vessel.

He wondered a lot about Dean and how he was holding up trapped in a room. Sam thought that he would handle sitting alone in a room better than his brother, who could never stay in one place for long before he wanted to crawl up the walls. Sam wouldn't have been surprised to find a rut in the floor of Dean's cell from his pacing.

But Dean wasn't the one with The Devil on his shoulder, and it seemed that Lucifer wanted to make Sam's imprisonment as unpleasant as possible.

He was supposed to be in solitary confinement, but he was never left alone.

He ran his fingertips over the concrete wall where he started making tally marks in an attempt to keep track of the days that passed. If he was correct, it'd been about six weeks.

If he was honest, it felt more like six years.

_"More like fifteen years. You remember how time in The Cage works, don't you?"_

"Shut up," Sam hissed.

It started with nightmares. Now, he was tormented by Lucifer day and night. Now, he couldn't tell if it was Lucifer mocking him, or the Lucifer his mind created mocking him.

He thought that he would be able to hold up better alone in a room than Dean, but he was wrong. It was too much like The Cage. It was too confining. It lacked the smell of sulfur and blood, but made up for it with the stench of urine and mold.

The only human contact (using the word loosely) came three times a day when a guard slid a tray of cold slop through the slot in his door, and then three more times when the tray was collected. It didn't have to be empty when they collected it. The guards didn't care if a prisoner starved himself to death.

After all, the people on the other side of the doors were the scum of the earth to the guards, and Sam wondered if they would ever just execute him because he wasn't seeing another way out of there.

Lethal injection. Electric chair. It didn't matter.

-:- 

_Sam stood in the middle of the room, mirrors lining the walls. He watched his reflection walk in slow circles around him._

_He wasn't moving._

_It wasn't hard to figure out that Lucifer was his reflection. It wasn't hard to figure out that he invaded his dreams yet again._

_He'd invaded them every night since Sam was locked away. As a memory or real, it didn't make much difference._

_He grinned at Sam. "Even when I lose, I still win," he said._

_The worst part about the dreams was being unable to wake himself up with a simple pinch or reality check. Being forced to stay and listen to Lucifer's gloating._

_"I'm having so much fun being out and free. I don't suppose you know the feeling anymore."_

_"Shut up."_

_It was usually all he said to Lucifer now. There was nothing else left to be said._

_He laughed, but it was Sam's laugh. Twisted and distorted into something inhuman._

_"Inhuman?" Lucifer echoed._

_Sam often forgot that his thoughts weren't safe when they were both inside his mind._

_"You have to be human before you can become inhuman," Lucifer said. "And you never were that, were you?"_

_Azazel appeared in the mirrors, yellow eyes aglow as he loomed over a crib and let his hand drip blood into the waiting mouth of an infant._

_As quickly as it appeared, it was gone again._

_"You were tainted. You're still tainted. You wanted to believe that The Trials were curing you, like it was some disease that could be gotten rid of," Lucifer said. He stepped out of the mirror and closer to Sam. "Except that they weren't and it isn't. The Trials were burning you from the inside, weren't they? Killing you instead of curing you. And the whole demon blood situation, well, that's permanent. It's not a sickness, it's a condition of being. A condition of your being my true vessel."_

_"Shut up," Sam said. "Get out of my head!"_

He woke up tangled in thin, dirty sheets and covered in sweat.

His "breakfast" arrived shortly after, and he still was unsure if it was supposed to be oatmeal or something else. It certainly didn't taste like anything familiar, and it took him the first week or so to get used enough to it that he didn't throw it right back up. That part wasn't so much due to the taste as it was the cold, congealed texture.

He ate and carved another tally mark into the wall. Six weeks, give or take. It only took that long for his mind to regress to the point it'd been at when the wall in his mind broke. How much longer would he be trapped there? How much longer until his sanity passed the point of no return?

_"You know how it ends."_

"Shut up."

The last time Sam prayed in the traditional way had been at Pastor Jim's parish as a child, but he found himself on his knees beside the cot in his cell with his hands folded and his head bowed.

"Cas," he said. "Castiel, I don't know if you're listening. I don't think Chuck is these days. But, uh, if you can hear me, I don't know where Dean and I are. I guess it's one of the places the government made for the worst of the worst. The kind of place that doesn't officially exist. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that Lucifer is alive. Rowena's spell didn't work and he's not in The Cage. If you're gonna do anything, work on taking care of him. Dean and I… we'll be fine."

He didn't know if he was supposed to tag an 'amen' on the end of his prayer. Was that still part of the protocol when he was praying to an angel, or was that the kind of thing reserved for God?

He moved to sit on the cot, used to how thin its mattress was. This had been Henricksen's wet dream once upon a time, before he learned about the things in the dark, to have the Winchesters tucked away in a maximum security prison. If only Henricksen was still alive to help them out of this mess.

When completely deprived of their senses, test subjects of a psychology experiment barely made it four days before they descended into madness. Sam remembered that from the psychology course he had to take for social science credits. The same course where he met Jess a lifetime ago.

Of course, it'd been more than four days, and Sam wasn't completely sensory deprived, but he felt the descent into madness beginning to fray the edges of his mind. It seemed almost physical, like it could fill in his cell and swallow him in its shadows.

He didn't know how much was due to Lucifer's influence and how much was due to the isolation. He hoped for it to be Lucifer's influence, if only because that meant Dean would be unaffected by the isolation. He could keep his sanity and move on if they ever got out.

-:- 

_"We've been here so many times, haven't we, Sam?" Lucifer asked._

_Lucifer in his true form. The only time Sam saw him like that was in The Cage. Had he been alive, seeing an angel's true form like that would have burned out his eyes. Dead (his body and soul separated during the fall in) and in Hell, it just made him wish that his eyes could be liquefied by fire._

_The twisted bars that formed the boundaries of The Cage were made of a material Sam never knew outside of Hell. It was beautiful and terrible, the divine work of a somber heart (did Chuck have a heart?)._

_"There's only one ending in store for you," he said. "No matter how many times you try to escape it, you'll always end up right back here. With me. Forever."_

_"No," Sam said. "You're wrong."_

_"I'm right," Lucifer said. He came closer until Sam felt like every fiber that composed his soul was being torn apart by the mere unholy presence of Lucifer. "I've always been right."_

_Lucifer could torture a soul without touching it, and sometimes that was worse than when he decided to be more hands-on._

_No matter how many years passed, the feeling of both never faded from Sam's memories. There were some things that Cas couldn't transfer to himself. Some burdens that he couldn't take away and place on his own shoulders._

_The Cage hurt even in his dreams, and Sam screamed until he could no longer tell if the screams came from him at all._

_"You know how this ends, Sam. When you can't take it anymore and you end up right back here."_

Sam woke up back in his concrete cell. Maybe these were considered inhumane living conditions purely due to the size and sanitation standards, but it was a palace compared to The Cage.

He didn't know if that dream was just made of the echoes of his time in The Cage abusing the unstable state of his mind, or another visit from Lucifer. He isn't sure that Lucifer wouldn't just start off his madness and let it snowball out of control on its own.

He's only sure that deliverance from his cell and death are equally appealing options now. Six weeks was a long time to hope for a rescue, and he didn't want to spend forty years or so locked alone in a prison that didn't exist to the public.

If anything, his only regret would be not getting to see Dean one last time. They weren't on bad terms, but he still had a lot of things he wanted to tell Dean. A lot of things he wanted to thank Dean for, but never had the chance to.

He closed his eyes, knowing that he wouldn't find sleep again soon after a nightmare like that, and Lucifer's words echoed through his mind.

_"You know how this ends, Sam."_


	2. Restless Dean

Forty-four tally marks, each one carefully carved after breakfast, meant he'd been there a little over six weeks now. It meant that it'd been a little over six weeks since he last saw Sam.

He wondered how Sam was holding up being trapped alone in a cell, but Dean figured he'd do better at it than him. Sam was always better at being patient. He was better at waiting and planning things out.

Dean was a man of action. He needed to be doing something. He needed to be in motion.

He had human contact (if it could be considered that) like clockwork. Receive breakfast, collect tray. Receive lunch, collect tray. Receive dinner, collect tray. The food was cold and didn't taste like much, but it was edible and that was good enough for him.

Lights out, sleep.

Simple enough. A set of rules that were easy, but so difficult, to follow.

He thought of going the _Shawshank Redemption_ route and trying to carve his way out, but he doubted he'd be able to get his hands on anything that could remotely be used as a tool for carving.

Since the prison he was locked in apparently didn't officially exist, he doubted that carving out would be the end of it anyway. The security had to be more than he'd ever seen before, certainly more than the little holding cells he unwillingly frequented or Deacon's prison had.

They got Lucifer, but he got the last laugh.

Once the Men of Letters' egg finished doing its forcible angel exorcism, they should've gotten the hell out of that room and far, far away. But saving people was half their job, and they just had to stay behind those few extra minutes to see if Lucifer did any irreversible damage.

The Secret Service wasn't quite on the same page, and now Dean was left to pace across his cell and wonder if escape was possible this time around.

He flopped onto the thin excuse of a mattress in the corner with a groan. He was trapped by people who thought he was a psycho cultist assassin, and he would never be able to convince them otherwise.

"Castiel," he called. "Now would be a great time for you to swoop in and get us out of here."

His mom checked in via text every week or so. He wondered how she was handling the fact that he hadn't replied in six weeks. Would it tip her off? Would she try and find them, or think that something was wrong?

She'd be right, but Dean didn't want her to hunt them down. He didn't want her to get caught in the same mess they were in.

He ran a hand down his face.

Sam's presence had become such a constant over the past decade or so, and now he felt especially lonely knowing that he had no way to communicate with him. The only thing that made it better than when Sam was in The Cage was knowing that he was just in another cell. He was in the same conditions as Dean, where the worst of it was probably being bored of his mind.

"Seriously, Cas," he said. "Kind of getting bored here. There are still plenty of monsters in the world that need hunting, and I can't exactly hunt from here."

There was no flutter of wings or a monotonous 'Hello, Dean'.

Eventually, his mom would catch on to the fact that something was up. She begged for time to reorient herself, but she might get more time away from them than she bargained for. At this rate, it was death by lethal injection (that was still what was used, right? Not that this place had to follow regulations, he imagined), or rot in a lonely, filthy cell for the rest of his years.

Although, the rest of his years would probably be cut short from infection or disease. It felt like there was a layer of grime that hours in the shower back at the bunker wouldn't be able to wash away.

"Castiel," he said. "C'mon, man. It's been six weeks, can't you find a trace of us?"

These were the times that Dean wished prayers could work both ways. Even if it only served as a way to Cas to tell him to shut up. At least he'd know that Cas was hearing him at all.

He felt like he belonged in a movie's prison montage scene, where the main character worked out in their cell in preparation for the big prison-break. Dean did push-ups, sit-ups, anything he could think of that was possible with his limited resources, only there was no big prison-break in sight for him. Not unless Cas finally decided to answer his prayers.

-:- 

Lunch came around, and another tray of cold mush was passed through the food slot and into his cell.

"Hey!" he yelled before the footsteps faded away. "I really don't belong here. If you gave me the chance, I could explain why."

The footsteps grew quieter and quieter. He didn't expect that to work anyway.

"At least tell me how my brother's doing!" he yelled.

Like every other day, his words fell on deaf ears.

He never knew how frustrating it would be to be seen as the scum of the earth and locked away. But they couldn't just lock him away anywhere. No, it had to be someplace that didn't even exist. Not really.

He was ready to rip his hair out strand-by-strand, but even that wouldn't take up enough time.

However, he could kill a good chunk of time by sleeping.

-:- 

_"It must be painful speaking to me in this shape."_

_Sam wore a white suit, but it wasn't Sam. He had his hair brushed back in a way that he never would. Ever since he was a kid, Sam would rather have his hair fall into his eyes than brush it away._

_Dean glanced down at the grass and saw himself laying there with a broken neck, eyes still open._

_"This memory used to scare me," Dean said. "When I wasn't sure that Sam would keep saying 'no' until we had no other option except for him to say 'yes'."_

_Lucifer tilted his head, looking more amused than anything._

_"It scared me before Sam proved that he could beat The Devil."_

_Lucifer shook his head with a wide grin and flickered out of existence._

Dean stretched and rolled over, falling back asleep within a minute.

_"I was just messing with you."_

_Sam closed the opening to The Cage, but it really wasn't Sam anymore._

_Dean looked around, the bodies of demons mentally killed by Sam with a passing thought were on the floor and the window was frosted. It was all just like the first time._

_"I know how this ends," Dean said. "It's just a memory. Sam took control when it mattered."_

_Lucifer put the key of Horsemen Rings in his pocket. "You say it like it's over."_

_"It is over," Dean said. "You lost. You got out of The Cage again, and you lost again. You will always lose."_

_Lucifer laughed and shook his head, both looking so wrong while he was in Sam's body. "You have a lot of talk for someone more trapped than I am."_

_Dean knew how to wake himself from dreams, usually the awareness of it was enough. But this time he had to concentrate to wake himself up._

He opened his eyes with a gasp. He couldn't tell if it was day or night while in his cell, but he still felt exhausted. Whatever sleep he'd gotten left him feeling less rested than when he laid down.

So he tried again.

_Sam had his gun trained on him, eyes wild and confused. "I thought I was with you, Dean," he said._

_This night was the beginning of a nightmare series of weeks. Sam never should have been so bad off that he had to hurt himself to be able to tell what was real and what wasn't._

_Lucifer hovered over Sam's shoulder in Nick's body. "Hope you don't mind that I gave Sam some strong suggestions to drive here," he said._

_"I don't remember driving here," Sam said, like he was oblivious to Lucifer talking in his ear._

_"We've been through this before, Sam," Dean said. "You have a tough time for awhile, but you beat it in the end. Cas helped you, remember? He took away the hallucinations. He made it so you could sleep again."_

_"He can't really react," Lucifer said. "It's your mind's creation. Whatever you do here won't change what really happened, which was disappointingly nothing."_

_"Shut up," Dean said. "You're just pissed that you lost. You lost during the Apocalypse. You lost with the memories of you tormenting Sam afterward. You lost this time, when you thought you could do whatever you wanted. Are you seeing a pattern here? 'Cause I sure am."_

_"Are you sure about that?" Lucifer asked. "Because I feel like I just might win this time."_

_Dean didn't try to talk Sam down this time, and he didn't feel it when Sam shot at him and he didn't dodge._

Dean rubbed at his eyes. He had a feeling that his dreams would continue following the whole 'Greatest Moments with Lucifer' theme if he tried sleeping again.

He stared at the ceiling wondering why he was reliving all those moments with Lucifer now, when Lucifer had been back in The Cage for six weeks.


	3. Dream a Little Dream

Mary took a deep breath, her hand raised. She flexed her fingers before balling it back into a fist.

She could do this, she told herself. They were her children. She was their mother.

And yet she stood outside of their door, preparing to knock but too nervous to go through with it. Like a stranger. They were still… strangers.

They always would be if she didn't knock. If she didn't finally accept their offer of being welcomed in their home. So she took a deep breath and brought her fist down on the door, hoping it'd be loud enough that they'd hear it from wherever they were inside the bunker.

It was their angel friend, Castiel, who opened the door, looking more ragged than she imagined an angel ever could.

"Mary?" he asked. He looked like he'd been sleeping in the same clothes for weeks with how wrinkled they were. His necktie was half-undone. His hair stuck out at every angle. She imagined his eyes would have been bloodshot and laden with dark circles underneath had he been human.

Her boys told her angels didn't need to sleep, but Cas looked like he could use a good twelve hours of it.

"Uh, hello, Castiel," she said. "I came to see my boys. Are they here?"

He kept the door open and stepped aside. "You should come in," he said.

She followed him down the staircase and to the bunker's library, where books laid scattered across every surface. Some opened. Some closed.

"Are they on a hunt?" she asked. If that was the case, whatever they were hunting had to be rare given the evidence of mass research filling the room.

She picked up a book and flipped through the pages, surprised to find that it wasn't about anything remotely supernatural. Turning to face Cas, she asked, "Why are they reading a book called _Hidden Prisons in the US: Places They Don't Want You to Know About_?" She set the book down and looked at the others around it. "All of them are like this? Cas, what the hell is going on?"

"Sam and Dean aren't on a hunt," he said. "They were arrested."

"Arrested?"

She knew that some hunters had issues with the law, mostly because their job sometimes required breaking it (most times required breaking it), but how much trouble did her boys get into that Cas resorted to using books about places that weren't supposed to exist to try and find them?

"They expelled Lucifer from the president," Cas said, "but his security detail must have walked in on them making sure he was okay after the possession. I didn't even know they didn't make it out, not until I starting hearing their prayers. Though their lack of communication beforehand did worry me."

Their lack of communication should have worried Mary, too. Her stomach felt sour at the thought that she couldn't remember how long it'd been since she was in contact with either of them, and the fact that it hadn't raised any suspicion.

She'd just let it go. Brushed it off and thought they were simply giving her the space for which she asked or off on a longer hunt.

"How long?" she asked. She didn't really want to know, but she needed the answer.

"Six weeks," Cas said. "Six weeks, two days, and ten hours."

"Oh, God," Mary breathed out. She sank into a nearby chair. Six weeks. Her boys were gone for six weeks, and she didn't even notice.

What kind of mother was she?

"They've been praying to you?"

"Yes," Cas said. "But they have sigils etched on their ribs that hide them from me, and they, themselves, don't know where they're being kept."

"Are they okay?"

"Dean is restless and complains that he's bored."

Mary smiled a bit at that. She didn't know Dean well, but she remembered how he had to keep moving around when they were searching for Sam. She remembered how he looked like he was ready to climb the walls, and how she sometimes felt the same way.

"And Sam?" she asked.

Cas looked uncertain for a moment. Of what, she didn't know.

"He tells me that our plan didn't work and Lucifer is not in The Cage," Cas said.

Lucifer existing was a lot to take in, but Dean briefed her about it (and a whole lot of other topics) a little bit during the time she stayed at the bunker immediately after her resurrection. He did tell her that Lucifer was in a cage in Hell, then released, then returned, then released again.

It was more complicated than any hunt she remembered doing before her death, and another reminder that she'd been pulled back into a world she no longer understood.

"How could he know that?"

"I don't know," Cas said.

She may not have known him for very long, but she could still spot lies. She grew up learning to spot things normal people couldn't.

"You're lying to me."

"Dean says that sometimes it's better to lie than tell the truth."

Mary sighed. "Just tell me, Castiel. Please, they're my sons."

"If Lucifer truly is not in The Cage and has not found another vessel, then I fear he may be circling Sam."

"Why?"

Cas looked anywhere except at her. "That doesn't matter right now. We should focus on finding them, and I have an idea of who can help us."

-:- 

Mary found herself sitting at the kitchen table of the bunker with an angel, a demon (claiming to be the King of Hell), and his witch mother (literally a witch, she wasn't just being mean).

She felt more like she was in the set-up of a bad joke.

"You have got to be kidding me," Rowena said. "You want me to track two men, and one of them may or may not have Lucifer circling him? He should be back in his cage. The spell went perfectly."

"Apparently not, if Lucifer isn't in The Cage. Which was the entire point of the spell in the first place," Crowley said.

Rowena glared at him, and Mary wondered how they were mother and son. At the same time, their relationship felt as distant as hers did with Sam and Dean. She would like to keep the hostility out of that relationship, though.

"If Lucifer is still alive, he'll be after your head, too," Crowley said. "He'll be after all of us for that last stunt. So if you value your life, and I know you do, you'll help."

Rowena rolled her eyes. "I'll do it, but I'm telling you that Lucifer is back in his cage. That spell was foolproof."

"Rowena, please," Cas said. "Just find Sam and Dean's location."

-:- 

_Dean knew he was dreaming, but he was glad that it wasn't of memories of Lucifer again._

_This time, he could enjoy just sitting on the roof of the Impala under the night sky. Usually Sam would be next to him and they'd have an array of fast food surrounding them, but he had to take what he could get for now._

_"Dean."_

_Dean whipped around at the sound of his name and saw Cas standing a few feet away._

_"That really you, Cas?"_

_"Rowena found your location, so I was able to use it to enter your dream," Cas said._

_"Why didn't you just fly in and get us out?" Dean asked._

_"We're working out a plan to get both of you out, but Rowena's spell didn't work. Lucifer isn't in The Cage, he's circling you two. It wouldn't be safe for me to get you two out, Lucifer would notice me."_

_"Then, what's the plan?" Dean asked. He hoped off of the Impala's hood, realizing that it didn't matter much while he was in a dream. "We can't let him keep circling Sam. He's had more than enough Lucifer in his life for the next couple of millennia."_

_"Crowley won't draw as much attention getting you two out as I would flying you two out," Cas said. "The plan is to set up a distraction to draw the majority of guards out and give Crowley the chance to find your exact cells."_

_"When?"_

_"I don't know, Dean. It will take us time to get there."_

_"We apparently don't have time, Cas. I don't want my brother stuck alone with Lucifer breathing down his neck for another second." Dean took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. "Do you know how long it's been? How long Lucifer's been bothering him?"_

_Cas shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dean. I only found out recently that he wasn't in The Cage, though Sam suspected that according to his prayers. We didn't know until Rowena tracked him after tracking you, and then him. His location was the same."_

_"Is he in a vessel? Is he one of the guards?"_

_"No, he doesn't have a vessel. He's circling Sam in his true form, which made it easier for Rowena as his power is much more potent and traceable."_

_"Shit, shit, shit," Dean muttered._

_He paced next to the Impala. He thought that being bored was the worst part of being imprisoned, but he was wrong. The worst part was knowing that the thing who tortured his brother for almost two centuries in Hell was once again unwilling to leave Sam alone._

_He needed something to hit. He needed something to kill (Lucifer was at the top of the list)._

_"You gotta get him out, Cas," Dean said. "You gotta get him out as soon as you can. Every time he's been alone with The Devil before never ended well."_

_"I'll do my best, Dean."_

_Dean wanted to say more, but Cas was gone._

Dean was standing and at the door of his cell before his brain completely caught up with the fact that he was awake. He pounded on the door and yelled until his voice was hoarse, but nothing would draw the guards' attention to him. They didn't care whether he lived or died.

And they definitely wouldn't care if Sam was being tormented in his cell. They probably already thought both of them were Satanists. Sam arguing with Satan would kind of fit that profile of them.

Even if they were in the same building, Dean never felt farther away from Sam.


	4. Breaking

Sam knew his hand was broken the second it met the wall of his cell. Neither him nor Dean were strangers to broken bones and the distinct feeling of them compared to other injuries. He remembered breaking his hand when that TA couldn't handle the girl he was obsessed with dying, so he just had to bring her back. That case had resonated with Dean, who had recently been brought back from the brink of death himself at the cost of their father's life and soul.

He wondered if Dean still felt that the dead should stay dead.

They'd been injured and killed probably more than anybody else, but they knew to get injuries that were severe treated by a professional (they knew what they could and couldn't handle on their own), and Sam doubted that any of the guards even cared about his hand. They'd probably be happy to see it, as long as it caused Sam to suffer more. No wonder they were left alone, the guards didn't need to intervene to make their imprisonment worse than it was. Slowly losing their minds was bad enough as it was.

Or maybe it was just Sam slowly losing his mind. Was Dean still sane? Was Dean losing it as easily as he was?

He pressed down on the break, the discomfort of the shift of disconnected bones under his flesh, or the sound the bones made when they ground against each other, no longer bothering him. He wanted to feel the pain radiate through his hand. He wanted it to take away the voice of Lucifer like pressing the cut on his hand did in the past. Like reopening his stitches again and again used to.

_"Why not just try breaking the other hand, too?"_

Sam pressed down harder. "Shut up," he hissed through clenched teeth.

_"Not working, is it? Not like the old days."_

Sam spun around in his cell, looking desperately for a way out. It never felt more confining than it did in that moment. He swore that the walls were closing in on him, they would come closer and closer until they finally crushed him.

Or maybe it was his ribs that were closing in on his lungs, because breathing was becoming difficult and black spots flooded his vision from the lack of sweet oxygen (even if the atmosphere was composed of roughly seventy-eight percent nitrogen, twenty percent oxygen, and two percent other, but now wasn't the time for him to be remembering science classes from more than a decade and a half ago).

_"You're really losing it this time, aren't you?"_

Lucifer couldn't hide the glee in his voice, the mocking undertones that signaled he thought he won. After the first few decades in Hell, once the initial anger wore off, it was the only tone of voice Sam heard from him. When he realized that he may have lost, but Sam also lost by winning. When he realized that he could still win by breaking Sam and making him scream until his voice reverberated through all of Hell. When he realized that he wasn't caged alone this time and had Sam to be his endless entertainment.

The bones in his hand shifted again from the pressure he applied, and he knew that they wouldn't be returning to their original placement without the intervention of a medical professional (which would mean breaking his hand again just to set it by the time he could see a professional, if he could ever see one again). Since that was unlikely to happen as long as he was imprisoned, he resigned himself to the knowledge that he would have a forever mangled hand when it eventually healed. It would probably be too deformed to use properly by the time it managed to heal due to how many times Sam kept re-injuring it. How many times Sam shifted the bone fragments farther and farther from their initial positions.

"Not real," he said to his empty cell. "Not real. Not real."

_"Oh, I'm very real, Sam. This is all very real. But if you want it to end, well, you know what to do."_

Sam huffed out a humorless laugh at that. The Devil was telling him to kill himself in a cell, but what the hell in his cell was he supposed to use to kill himself?

_"Wanna see if you can beat the record for most days without sleep again?"_

Sam already felt exhausted from hearing Lucifer's voice when he was awake, and then seeing him every time he fell asleep. He leaned his back against the wall, and slowly sank down until he sat on the floor. He didn't care anymore about how filthy his cell was. After roughly six weeks, he was just as filthy. The guards never let him out of his cell, so he never got a chance to wash off any of the grime that accumulated on his skin.

"This can't be happening," he said.

He hit the back of his head against the wall. Not hard enough to do damage, but hard enough to leave a deep ache in his skull. Though that could have been attributed to Lucifer's unwillingness to leave him alone. To give him even a moment of peace.

_"I'll be seeing you in Hell soon. You can't honestly believe that someone with demon blood who's made as many mistakes as you would be allowed into Heaven."_

But a moment of peace always seemed to be too much to ask for.

-:- 

Dean paced and banged his fists against every wall, hard enough that sometimes it felt like he broke his hand. Nothing was worse than knowing that Sam needed him, but being unable to be there to help Sam.

"Cas," he said, "you better be working your ass off to get Sam out of here."

When Lucifer tormented Sam, the aftermath was never pretty, and it was something Dean never wanted to deal with again. He wondered if Sam would be able to tell the difference between what was real and what was fake this time. He wondered if he would have to worry about Sam waving a gun around, and even pointing it at him because he couldn't be sure he was really Dean.

He ran his hand over his hair again, a little longer than he liked having it, but he wasn't expecting the guards to come in and give him a shave and a haircut (he couldn't imagine what Sam looked like with his hair left unchecked, he grew hair faster than anyone else Dean knew). Even though Cas promised that he was working to bust them out, every second that passed without the arrival of the escape party raised his anxiety over Sam's condition. It didn't help that Cas gave him so little information about Sam and he had no way of filling in the blanks about it either.

Sam might as well have been on the other side of the world.

Dean laid on the pathetic excuse for a bed in his cell. He didn't like begging, but he certainly wasn't above it. "Cas, I'm gonna go to sleep. Pop into my dream and update me on whatever the hell you've been doing. At least just tell me how Sam's holding up. You can't just tell me freaking Lucifer is bugging him and leave, man. You can't do that to me."

Dean closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come, and hoped that Cas would pay him a visit.

-:- 

Sam tossed and turned on his bed, sheets tangled around his legs, but sleep wouldn't come. Not when Lucifer invaded his mind with the flash of a memory from Hell every time he closed his eyes until he was left with an aching head, as painful as it had been when he used to have visions that felt like they were splitting his skull apart. They always felt too real. He still felt the heat of the fire. He still felt the bite of meat hooks tethered to his flesh.

"Leave me alone," he said.

_"It ends when you can't take it anymore."_

It was the same line Lucifer always said, whether he was a hallucination or a reality. Sam knew very well what it meant, and that Lucifer would always be trying to get him to die, by his own hands preferably.

Sam laid and stared at the ceiling. He reminded himself that he's beaten The Devil before. Bobby told him those exact words when his mind was tearing itself apart after the wall crumbled and left him struggling to keep his grip on reality.

_"Every other time you had Dean there to help you. Have you ever been able to do anything without him?"_

Sam couldn't think of anything he'd really had to do on his own. When Dean wasn't there, Ruby had been. Even if it was all a huge mistake, he still hadn't been alone. But when he jumped into Hell, when the wall broke, when he tried to close the gates of Hell and got sicker and sicker with each trial, it was Dean who was there. Dean who did everything he could to help Sam make it through everything.

If he were being honest with himself, he didn't know if he could beat Lucifer without Dean.

"C'mon, Cas. You have to do something about Lucifer," he said. "We can't let him do whatever he wants in this world. He's distracted by me right now, but I know that won't last forever. I won't be able to take it forever. It's only a matter of time before he moves on to his next plan. Until he makes another mess."

Maybe it was selfish to beg Cas to get rid of his problems, but he wouldn't be able to last much longer if Lucifer refused to let him sleep.

Judging by the laughter echoing in his mind, that was exactly what Lucifer planned to do.


	5. The Plan in Action

It took them days to arrive at the prison where Sam and Dean were, mostly because Cas insisted that Mary drive him there as part of their plan. They couldn't just pop in like Crowley with Rowena.

"I still think this is an awful idea," Mary said.

"It's the only idea we have," Cas said. He looked straight ahead, unfazed by her concerns.

"That doesn't make it a good idea, Castiel."

She swore that Cas almost smiled as he said, "Dean, Sam, and I have made worse plans work."

"We're headed straight towards the guards of a top-secret prison to act as bait," Mary said. "What plan could possibly be worse than that?"

"Giving Lucifer what he wanted so that he could be put back into his cage, even though we all knew that Sam's chance of regaining control from him was nearly non-existent," Cas said. "It was an incredible feat."

Mary swerved into the opposite lane when Cas' words registered, thankful that there was little-to-no traffic on the roads that late at night. "Sam did what?"

"They didn't tell you," Cas said. He said it as a statement, but the slight surprise in his voice almost made it a question. "That doesn't matter right now. We're getting close and you can ask them all the questions you want once they're free."

Every instinct in Mary screamed that she should turn around now. Every fiber of her begged for answers to the questions that Cas raised. Begged her to stop the car until she got them.

But she kept driving the rest of the way to the boundary of the prison because, over-thirty or not, Sam and Dean were her sons. They once were the quiet, happy six month old and four year old who never seemed to stop talking that she remembered. After all, every mother felt that her children grew up too fast.

Well, all of those other mothers really had no idea.

The roads became rougher and less maintained until they were just vague paths made of loose gravel as they closed in on a fence topped with barbed wire in the middle of a wooded area. Cas took a second to call Crowley and let him know to get started on busting Sam and Dean out.

Mary put the car in park at the first sign of distinctly human movement in the bushes, and stepped out alongside Cas.

"Hands in the air," one of the men yelled.

They both complied, and Mary took a deep breath to calm herself despite the guns trained on her.

"We're… lost," Mary said. She had to do her best to not roll her eyes at how pathetic that sounded.

"No, I knew exactly where I was going," Cas said.

She glared at Cas, then looked at the guards. "You know how men can be," she said. "He thinks he knows the right way, but refuses to ask for directions when it's clear he doesn't. If you could just point us in the right direction, we'll be going. There's really no need for guns."

The guards shared a look and quiet murmur amongst themselves, and Mary knew she sounded far too calm for a civilian. But she'd been a hunter nearly her entire life, and facing danger was as natural as breathing.

As a hunter, she had also faced many long nights. She had a feeling this was going to be another one. She just hoped they could give Rowena enough time to slip into Sam's cell and get him out. Crowley had it a bit easier.

She prepared herself to do whatever she needed to help rescue her boys. She just hoped that she wouldn't be returning to the bunker with bullet holes.

-:- 

Dean never expected to see someone appear in his cell. He especially never expected to see Crowley standing there.

"You smell rancid," he said in lieu of a greeting.

"This place isn't exactly five star quality," Dean said.

Crowley reached his hand towards Dean's shoulder. "I guess it's your lucky day, then," he said. "Time to go."

Dean ducked away from his hand. "Whoa, I'm not leaving without Sam," Dean said. "Lucifer is screwing with him again. We have to go get him. Or you go get him and leave me here. I don't care, just make sure he's out and safe."

Crowley rolled his eyes. "Look, Samantha is being taken care of by someone who can hide from Lucifer long enough to get him out and create an illusion that will make it seem like Sam's still in his cell for another day or so to throw Lucifer off. Now, you're going to stand still and let me get you out of here, or that extra line in my most recent contract that asks for the release of Dean Winchester from prison along with what the poor sap wanted to deal for will go to waste!"

It all came out in a rush of a single breath, and Dean was left staring at Crowley while the torrent of words sank in. "What?"

Crowley shrugged, the red in his face from his tirade fading as he calmed. "Makes his dues come a year early, but it gets you out of prison. No one reads the fine print of a contract anyway."

Crowley clapped his hand on Dean's shoulder, and Dean didn't even try to flinch away this time. His cell faded into the living room of the bunker, and he looked around to find it horribly empty.

"Where the hell is Sam?"

Crowley made himself comfortable browsing through the liquor cabinet. "Hold your horses, Squirrel. Prison breaks take time, especially when Lucifer is involved. He will be here soon enough." Crowley paused in his search to look back at Dean and said, "But it really wouldn't hurt if you used this time to go wash up. Believe me, you need it."

Dean felt the grime that covered him and really wanted to take a scalding shower until it was all washed away, but it was hard to focus on anything other than the fact that he was standing safe in the bunker—in his home—while Sam was still in prison with Lucifer acting as the angel on his shoulder.

-:- 

Sam cradled his deformed hand close to his chest, not entirely sure what was happening. He did his best to ignore Lucifer's voice in the back of his head, but he couldn't figure out why he would be imagining this. Rowena had waltzed through the door to his cell and slammed it back shut behind her.

"Hello, Samuel," she greeted. "You're looking particularly awful."

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked. He shook his head. "No, you're not real. You can't be."

"I don't have time to deal with your fractured mental state, Samuel, but I am real. I'm also the only one who can get you out without tipping off Lucifer. He can't feel my presence here," she said. "Not unless I want him to."

Sam watched Rowena work as she set up for what looked like a ritual. Symbols drawn on the floor with a stick of charcoal. Candles placed in a pattern he didn't recognize and lit.

Sam still had a hard time believing that he was about to escape, but when Rowena pushed him out of her way as she bustled about his room, her touch was solid. He never remembered his hallucinations of Lucifer as feeling solid. There was always a hollowness to their touch, no matter how real it felt.

Rowena pulled out a blade, and Sam instinctively moved away, but she didn't go near him with it. Instead, she cut open the thin pillow on his mattress and stuffed what looked like an oversized hex bag into it.

"Had to steal some bits from your bedroom to make that," she said. "But Lucifer will still think that you're here because of it, so I was sure you wouldn't mind sacrificing a few personal effects for it."

"What?" Sam asked. It was all he could really get out through the mess of thoughts fighting to be spoken aloud.

"It will simulate your presence, so it will be like you've never left," Rowena said, looking directly at him and speaking slowly like she wasn't sure he would understand her words.

She wasn't entirely wrong. His brain felt like more of a mess than it had directly after the wall fell and all Hell literally broke loose.

"But it will only last for about a day," Rowena continued. "So, we need to be on our way now."

"Why are you helping me?" Sam asked.

"Believe me, I'd rather not," Rowena said. She pulled him into the center-most symbol of those she drew earlier. "But the last time Lucifer was successfully returned to his cage, you played a pretty big role. And I'd like to get Lucifer back into his cage again so I can finally retire in peace in Fiji and leave all of this nonsense behind."

Sam let himself be maneuvered into the symbol. "Fiji?" he asked. He figured his brain must really be scrambled if his hallucinations and mental torment at the hands of Lucifer made more sense than whatever it was his mind had cooked up now. "Why are we going to Fiji?"

"We aren't," Rowena said. "Just me. But not right now. Right now, we're going back to the Men of Letters' bunker."

Any other loose thoughts in Sam's head were put on hold when Rowena grabbed a pinch of powder from a small bag and exclaimed the words of a spell Sam didn't know. He was engulfed in thick smoke and coughed as it filled his lungs.

The world around him spun, and he was certain that he was going to either throw up or pass out. Combining both seemed like a pretty good option.

But when the world stopped and the smoke cleared, Sam found himself being held up by hands tightly gripping his upper arms and he was looking into eyes that always kept him steady. Green and wide with worry.

"Sammy…"

There were times when Sam doubted he'd ever hear his brother's voice again, but damn if it wasn't the most beautiful sound in that moment.


	6. Mending

Sam and Rowena appeared in the bunker surrounded by a mess of smoke, but Dean wasted no time getting to his brother and gripping his arms, if only to reassure himself that Sam was truly there.

"Sammy," Dean said.

He didn't really know what to follow that up with. There were a lot of things he wanted to say, but now that he finally had the chance, his mind became blank.

"Dean," he said. He had a weary half-smile, but Dean was just glad they were able to be in the same room again.

Sam looked awful (even ignoring his desperate need for a shave, a haircut, and a shower), which didn't help him with debating what to say, and Dean was glad he took Crowley's suggestion to clean up himself before Sam arrived. After seeing him, there was no way Dean was going to take time to care for himself.

Dean pulled Sam into a hug, which was quickly returned. "Man, am I glad to see you again, Sammy."

Crowley cleared his throat, drawing their attention to himself. "You might want to call your pet angel and tell him that his distraction is no longer required. And with that, my presence here is no longer needed. I have better things to do, like find a way to successfully re-cage Lucifer once and for all."

Rowena didn't take long to follow her son's lead. "Next time you contact me, make sure it's because you need me to help with Lucifer, and nothing else. I'm sick of all this nonsense," she said before she left.

Dean returned his attention to Sam, and Sam gave him a nod, letting him know that he would be okay for the minute it took to call Cas. And maybe Sam believed that he would be okay, but Dean believed that he looked like he was on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion (and maybe pain based on the lines on his face and the way his breathing hitched on occasion). The dark circles under his eyes were far too reminiscent of when Sam was sleep deprived due to The Devil never leaving him alone for Dean's taste.

But Cas playing distraction wasn't an idea he liked either.

"I'm fine, Dean," Sam said. "Just call Cas before anything happens."

"Castiel," Dean called. "Castiel, we're back at the bunker. More or less intact."

Dean expected Cas to appear as quickly as he normally did, but it took more than a minute for him to arrive and say "Hello, Dean" in his usual monotonous voice. Dean spun his attention towards him to ask what took so long, and demand that he take a look at Sam, who could use an angelically induced nap at the very least.

But he didn't expect his mother to be right next to Cas, clutching one hand over her bleeding arm.

"Mom?" Dean asked.

Cas healed her arm with a simple, effortless touch.

She gave them a small smile. "It was just a graze," she said. "But I'm glad that you both got out before they managed to get a good shot in."

Her smile faded quickly once she looked at Sam from over his shoulder. "Are you okay, Sam?" she asked.

Dean faced Sam again, who looked paler than before. His eyes kept darting around the room at random, but they never seemed to focus on any one thing. It wasn't until he pressed down on his right hand that Dean noticed he'd been cradling it.

And then that he noticed it looked pretty far from normal.

Dean grabbed Sam's right hand and pulled it away from the obsessive pressure Sam kept applying to it, and he didn't fail to notice the wince that Sam tried to hide.

"Jesus, Sam," he said. "What the hell did you do to yourself?"

"Pain used to make him go away," Sam said.

"Did it this time?"

Sam shook his head.

Dean sighed. He feared as much, but it was worse than he thought if Sam was pushed to the point of damaging his hand that badly. They might have escaped prison, but there was a part of Sam that was still trapped somewhere far away.

Cas came over and took a look at Sam's hand, but Dean didn't like his frown.

"Cas, what's wrong?"

"The bones in his hand are severely displaced," Cas said.

"So, fix them," Dean said.

"I heal injuries as they are, Dean," Cas said. "If I were to heal Sam's hand as is, it would keep its current shape even if the bones are once again connected."

"What the hell, Cas?" Dean asked. "You never mentioned that before."

"It's never been a problem before, Dean. Sam's hand has been like this for days, at least. I am usually able to heal your wounds relatively close to when they've been received, and I've always been able to heal the broken bones before they were severely displaced."

"So, what? We have to set them first?" Dean asked.

"If you want me to be able to properly heal his hand, then yes."

"We aren't that far from a clinic," Mary added in. She looked a little pale, but Dean wasn't sure if it was from being shot or from seeing Sam's hand. "I passed it when I… when I left."

Maybe in another situation, the hesitance and slight regret in her voice would have had Dean giving her reassurances that they understood why she left, and maybe they were a little hurt at first, but they forgave her.

But now wasn't the time for dealing with familial rifts. It was the time for fixing physical wounds, then psychological wounds because Sam was clearly suffering from some.

"There's no way we can go to a clinic," Dean said.

"What?" Mary asked. "Dean, you heard Castiel. He needs a real doctor to set the bones in his hand if we want it healed properly."

"We just escaped a high-security prison for the worst of the worst criminals. When they find out we're gone, our faces are going to be on every media source in the freaking world. And we probably were already all over the news after we were first arrested. And this isn't the first time that we would be on the most wanted list," Dean said. "I don't think we can show our faces in a public building anytime soon without being arrested again, so seeing a doctor is really not an option here."

"You do it, Dean," Sam said.

Dean almost felt bad that this was the first time Sam participated in the conversation that was about him, being carried on as though he weren't there. "I'm not a doctor, man, and if I screw this up…"

If he screwed up, Sam's usability for his right hand was at stake, something which was pretty useful when their job involved handling weapons on a regular basis and in life or death situations.

"Just get as close as you can," Sam said. "Let Cas heal it, and if it's still a problem we'll go to a hospital when we can show our faces again and get it re-broken and set properly."

Sam made it sound easy, like it was the simplest option available to them and not a big deal in the slightest. But maybe it wasn't a big deal to him. Hell, he just spent weeks locked up with Lucifer as constant company.

It looked like it was taking everything Sam had to stay focused enough on what needed to be done, and the sooner Dean did it, the sooner he could work on sorting out the rest of Sam.

"Fine," Dean said.

They made their way to a table, Dean assuming that a flat surface would prove invaluable here. The eyes of his mother and Cas focused on him were as disconcerting as the knowledge that he would be feeling his brother's bones shift and he would be the cause of it.

"Come on, Dean," Sam urged.

Dean had never set any bones before, but he had to give Sam credit for not making any sound beyond sharp gasps when the bones displaced the farthest were forcibly moved by Dean. He wasn't sure if he could have done it had Sam cried out due to the pain that he caused.

Dean felt that it was going to be a long night for all of them.

-:- 

At the end Sam's hand didn't look perfect, but it seemed to function well enough that he could handle weapons and it wouldn't be putting him in danger. Which, when Dean thought about it, was the most he could ask for.

But Sam's mental status rapidly deteriorated by the minute. He lost focus on what he was doing and had a distant look in his eyes like he didn't even know where he was. By the time he started mumbling incoherently under his breath and flinching away from unseen threats, Dean had to ask Cas to put Sam to sleep a little earlier than he originally planned.

Sam was seeing things, even without Lucifer's intervention. Unless Lucifer found Rowena's trick, which Crowley filled him in on with what he called a simplified explanation, earlier than they expected. Dean wasn't sure which option he preferred, not when they both left Sam questioning reality.

Dean ran a hand down his face. Sam was completely at peace in his sleep, probably for the first time in far too long. With how long it took to set his hand, Dean only managed to get Sam to take a shower and shave (with Dean hovering to make sure he didn't cut himself on accident) before his mind wasn't functioning enough for anything other than sleeping. They both needed a few good meals to put some meat back on their bones, but it looked like they would be waiting until morning to start working on that.

Mary came in with a few cups of coffee, giving one to Dean and setting the one meant for Sam off to the side. "So, he won't be waking up until morning?" she asked.

"I really hope not," Dean said. "He needs the sleep, and he needs it to not be riddled with nightmares. How's the arm?"

"It was just a graze in the first place, and it's perfectly fine now," she said. "I have so much I have to apologize to you boys for, but I wanted Sammy to be awake for it, too."

"We get it, Mom. Maybe I was a little angry at you for a while, but some people helped me understand why you had to leave," Dean said. "You don't have to apologize."

"I'd still like to. You know, you boys really scared me by disappearing."

Dean pulled the chair in Sam's room next to the bed before sitting and propping his feet up. Mary took a seat at the foot of the bed, still keeping a bit of distance.

"Sorry about that," Dean said. "But believe me when I say that getting arrested was not part of the plan."

"I would hope not. I came here because I thought it was finally time to get to know my boys and be a family again, but I only found Castiel."

"Well, the room you used is still yours if you want it," Dean said.

"Are you planning on using your room tonight?" she asked.

Dean shook his head. He wasn't ready to be separated from Sam again so soon. Not after being apart for so long. Not after knowing Sam needed him back at the prison and he couldn't be there.

"Then, do you mind some company?" she asked.

Dean shook his head again.

Mary smiled and took the coffee cup meant for Sam as her own. There was a lot that they had to talk about, but they didn't say much. It could all wait.

Lucifer still walked the earth, the intentions of the British Men of Letters remained a mystery to them, and Sam was unstable again.

But they were out of prison, and their mom came home to them. They could deal with the rest of it together.

-:- 

Lucifer felt the guard's body pulling apart at the seams trying to contain his presence, but he wouldn't need it for long.

Sam was usually very affected by the simplest mental torment, but recently nothing he did seemed to be getting through to Sam. There was an emptiness to Sam's presence in the cell. He was there, but it felt like he wasn't. Not fully, at least.

Lucifer flew into Sam's cell and found it empty except for evidence of a witch's spell. It took him less than a minute to find Sam's pillow cut open and stuffed with an unusual hex bag.

Once the hex bag disintegrated into ashes in his hand, Sam's presence in the cell disintegrated with it.

"Rowena," he said.

The prison started to shake and crumble under the force of Lucifer's anger, his yell inhuman and echoing through the halls. By the time his vessel was destroyed, the prison had already been reduced to ruins, along with all of its occupants.

Let the Winchesters plot against him. Let them team up with Rowena and Crowley. Let them find a way to shove him back in his cage. Soon his child would roam the world, stronger than he could imagine. Strong enough that he hoped they would be able to release him into the world again, if need be.

Until then, if Lucifer was being put back into his cage, he was determined to drag Sam back into Hell with him.


End file.
